Winner in City Council Race Requests Another Election

By JONATHAN P. HICKS

Published: March 9, 2007

CORRECTION APPENDED

Facing growing questions about his residency, Mathieu Eugene said yesterday that Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg should call for another special election for the Brooklyn City Council seat to which Dr. Eugene was elected two weeks ago. He pledged that he would again be a candidate.

Dr. Eugene's announcement came slightly more than an hour after the New York City Board of Elections certified him as the winner of a Feb. 20 special election in Brooklyn to succeed Yvette D. Clarke, who was elected to Congress in November. But Christine C. Quinn, the Council speaker, had said that the Council would not swear Dr. Eugene in as a member until he provided proof of his residency, something Dr. Eugene refused to do.

Dr. Eugene was the first Haitian-born New Yorker elected to the Council.

''This should be a historical day for the city of New York,'' Mr. Eugene said, speaking at a news conference with about 50 supporters standing behind him on the steps of City Hall. ''This should be a historical day for all people of Haitian and Caribbean descent. But sadly, it is not the day we wished it would be.''

Dr. Eugene, who declined to answer questions after the news conference, said he did not want to enter the Council under a cloud and would rather run again. ''And I am certain that we will prevail again,'' he said.

Speaker Quinn released a statement saying; ''I support Dr. Mathieu Eugene's decision to call for a special election in the 40th District. Dr. Eugene won election by an overwhelming majority, as the certification of his election clearly demonstrates.''

John Gallagher, a spokesman for the mayor, said that Mr. Bloomberg would call for another special election once he received written confirmation from Dr. Eugene about his decision.

During the campaign, Dr. Eugene was forthright about the fact that he did not live within the 40th Council District, which includes the Prospect Park, Flatbush and Crown Heights neighborhoods. He maintained that he would move from his home in Canarsie as the election approached. Candidates are not required to live in the district they seek to represent, but it is unclear what the requirements are at the time of the election or when an election is certified.

Some lawyers have interpreted that to mean that residency must be established by Election Day. But Dr. Eugene's lawyer has argued that residency only needed to be established by the time the votes were certified.

Dr. Eugene said that he signed a lease on Feb. 1 for an apartment within the district and that he had moved in the following week, well before the election. He even allowed reporters to visit the two-bedroom apartment in the Prospect Park South area. But when asked, he and his lawyer declined to produce copies of the lease. Ms. Quinn asked Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo for an interpretation of the law. And Mr. Cuomo's office said that residency must be established at the time voters go to the polls.

The Council then asked Dr. Eugene to sign an affidavit saying that he met the eligibility requirements. They also asked him for other records, such as voter registration information, utility bills and other documents to help determine residency. He refused to sign the affidavit and produced no documents.

People close to Dr. Eugene said that, in the end, he felt the lease alone would be insufficient to establish residency and that fighting the Council in court would be fruitless. Furthermore, they said, Dr. Eugene felt confident that he would win again, having won 43 percent of the vote in a 10-candidate race last month.

In contrast with Dr. Eugene, Vincent M. Ignizio was sworn in yesterday to a Council seat representing Staten Island, having also won a special election on Feb. 20. Mr. Ignizio provided the Council with a copy of mortgage documents, utility bills and even his marriage license. ''It has my birth information on it,'' he said.

At his news conference, Dr. Eugene took no questions and, as a result, did not answer questions raised in The Daily News yesterday about his medical credentials. Dr. Eugene has said that he is a doctor. But the Daily News reported that there was no evidence that he was licensed to practice medicine in New York State.

Scott Levenson, a political consultant to Dr. Eugene, said: ''He graduated from medical school at the Universidad del Noreste in Mexico. But he never applied for certification to practice in New York and has never practiced here.''

Correction: March 14, 2007, Wednesday
An article on Friday about a request by the winner of a Feb. 20 special election for a City Council seat that another election be held because of questions about his residency misstated the percentage of votes won by the candidate, Dr. Mathieu Eugene. It was 34 percent, not 43 percent. The error also occurred on Feb. 21 in an article about the election.